Editorial September 9, 1905 ISSUE

In Him We Move

John B. Willis

When we note the apparent stillness and stability of the earth, it does not seem surprising that until a relatively recent date men thought of it as the motionless center of the universe, and adjusted their astronomical speculations thereto. Had the earlier star-gazers dared to dream that this gigantic aggregate was whirling around at a surface rate of a thousand miles an hour, while at the same time spinning over the plane of the ecliptic at the rate of a thousand miles a minute, they would probably have been laughed at or stoned for their vagaries. Modern discovery, however, has long since peopled the sky-depths with unnumbered solar centers whose every planet moves in ceaseless flight upon its appointed way, while suns and systems speed in majestic silence through the vast corridors of space.

Astounding as the movements of the heavenly bodies may seem, however, the sense of the universality of motion is yet more stimulated by the recent discovery of physical scientists who are studying molecular phenomena. These have reached the conclusion that, instead of being an infinitesimal particle of matter, the atom is an aggregation of hundreds of force-centers or corpuscles, respecting which they declare that the enormously energetic vibrations of molecules, which range among the billions per second and which we know as heat and light, are "rest and quiet" in comparison with the far more vigorous and rapid movements of these force centers! (v. "Radium Explained," by Dr. W. Hempson.)

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